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New York, June 10 (HS). After the six-run defeat against India in the ICC T20 World Cup match, Pakistan head coach Gary Kirsten admitted that the team put too much pressure on itself.
Rishabh Pant's brilliant innings was followed by Jasprit Bumrah's three wickets to put pressure on the Pakistani batsmen and India won by 6 runs at the Nassau County Stadium.
In the post-match press conference, Kirsten said, “All these players are international players and they know that when they are not performing at their best, there is pressure put on them. That is understandable, but a lot of these players have played a lot of T20 cricket around the world over many years and it really depends on them how they take their game forward.”
On the playing surface at Nassau County Stadium, Kirsten said it wasn't dangerous in any way, except for one or two balls that were rising sharply.
He said, “I think our batsmen were able to score and also the outfield was quite slow, so it was never going to be a big score. I would have said that 140 would have been a really good score on that pitch. So, India didn’t get that score, so I thought we won the match. We knew it was going to be a tough contest, but sometimes it is fun to watch such games as well. It is not always about hitting sixes and hitting, scoring 230 and 240 runs. Actually chasing a target of 120 runs you can play a really entertaining game. So, I don’t think it is bad for the game.”
Kirsten said while chasing the target, the message given to the team was to convert the loose balls into boundaries and rotate the strike well.
“We kept it at one run a ball, and then we lost wickets and then we stopped scoring and then we were looking for boundaries and once you get to that point it's always going to be tough. So, the message was to do what we did for 15 overs,” he said.
The coach said that on such a surface, it is important to rotate the strike well.
He said, “Sometimes it is fun to watch a game like this, where you don't just have to hit boundaries, but you also have to use 120 balls properly. As I said, we did that for 15 overs and then we deviated from our strategy.”
In this match, Pakistan won the toss and invited India to bat first. However, the Indian batsmen did not perform well on this difficult surface and star openers Virat Kohli (4) and Rohit Sharma (13) failed to score big. Rishabh Pant (42 runs in 31 balls, six fours) was playing on a different pitch and he made useful partnerships with Axar Patel (20 runs in 18 balls, two fours and a six) and Suryakumar Yadav (seven runs in eight balls, one four). However, the lower middle order collapsed under the pressure of scoring runs on such a difficult pitch and India could score only 119 runs in 19 overs.
For Pakistan, Haris Rauf and Naseem Shah took 3-3 wickets, Mohammad Amir took two and Shaheen Shah Afridi took one wicket.
Chasing the target, Pakistan took a more balanced approach and Mohammad Rizwan (31 off 44 balls with a four and a six) held one end up. However, Bumrah (3/14) and Hardik Pandya (2/24) also took important wickets of captain Babar Azam (13), Fakhar Zaman (13), Shadab Khan (4), Iftikhar Ahmed (5), keeping the pressure on Pakistan intact. With 18 runs needed in the final over, Naseem Shah (10*) tried to seal the win for Pakistan, however, Arshdeep Singh (1/31) ensured that Pakistan fell behind by six runs. Bumrah won the 'Player of the Match' award for his match-winning spell.